In late October, I wrote a column about how the ship had sailed on the Barrhead Steelers' efforts to get a dedicated dressing room in the Agrena.
As part of the agreement with the municipality, the Steelers lost their dressing room to the junior hockey franchise.
While that ship has sailed (town councillors turned down the Steelers players' request for a dressing room), a group of parents and residents fired a cannonball at the sailing ship in an attempt to sink the franchise or at least move it out of Barrhead.
As you will read later in the paper, the group had sent a petition to Town of Barrhead council and is lobbying them to revisit its agreement with the Bombers, suggesting, not so subtly, that perhaps the municipality would be better without them, saying they need to focus on residents and ratepayers instead of a business, focusing on community groups such as the Barrhead Minor Hockey Association (BMHA) and Fun Hockey.
This is a bit ironic, as the local Fun Hockey program organizers are among the Bomber's biggest supporters. They also suggested that the aforementioned Fun Hockey and the majority of BMHA teams outdraw the junior franchise.
And although I admit, the Bombers' attendance is nothing to brag about, in my experience, they usually are about equal. But regardless of attendance, it troubles me that a group is actively trying to displace a business.
I also would suggest, as several county councillors have expressed over the years, the municipality should be doing everything they can to lower the operating deficits of their expensive to maintain recreational assets.
I would remind this group, that the majority of ratepayers do not have kids in minor hockey, skating, or swimming and the more it costs the municipality to operate the recreation facilities, the more we all pay in taxes and user fees.
